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Charles Will Wright (1879-1968) was an internationally known mining engineer. He born in Marquette, Michigan, and studied at the University of Heidelberg and the Freiberg School of Mines in Germany. He returned to the United States and received a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the Michigan College of Mines. He was a geological aide and assistant geologist in the Alaskan division of the United States Geological Survey from 1903 to 1909. He became chief engineer of the Societa Pertusole and Societa Germanari operating in Sardinia in 1909. He was general manager of the Societa Atensina Explorazioni Mineraraie in Northern Italy from 1919 to 1928. From 1928 to 1935, he was the chief of the mining division of the U.S. Bureau of Mines and chief mineral specialist for the U.S. State Department. In World War II he organized the mineral segment of the Institute of Inter-American Affairs to help accelerate the output of strategic minerals. He was a Colonel under General Lucius Clay reporting on German mineral resources during World War II, and he was chief foreign mineral specialist of the Department of State from 1942 to 1944. From 1944 to 1946 he was the chief technical consultant to the Board of Economic Warfare and Foreign Economic Administration. Leaving government service in 1947, he became a consultant for a number of private companies. Wright was the recipient of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers’ 1954 Legion of Honor award.